Vicki Gunvalson is opening up about a terrifying near-death experience she had.
Even though Vicki Gunvalson isn’t one of the main housewives The Real Housewives of Orange County In Season 18, she will always be the OG of the OC.
As she explains, people mistook her alarming symptoms for a stroke. Then, doctors misdiagnosed her with a sinus infection.
Eventually, she received a diagnosis and treatment. This could have easily been the end of her life.
What near-death experience did Vicki Gunvalson survive?
As you can see in the video below, Vicki Gunvalson sat down for her Monday, August 26 episode. My friend, my companion, my podcast podcast.
According to Wiki, he was diagnosed with a sinus infection in early August. Doctors discovered that he had a sinus infection.
He revealed that doctors had advised him to take antibiotics before he went on a family vacation to Europe. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there.
When Vicki Gunvalson returned home from Europe, she experienced a number of worrying symptoms.
She began to lose track of time — not minutes, but “an hour or two.” At one point, she drove from the hair salon to her office and couldn’t remember anything about the time in between.
People at work told her she was “talking nonsense.” This also came out in writing, as she had apparently sent an email that “didn’t make sense” to the recipient.
Vicki Gunvalson’s symptoms were worrying; was she having a stroke?
Everyone can mistype a sentence, a paragraph or more. Anyone can find themselves lost in thought for “a little while” only to find that it’s all gone 15 minutes later. But these aren’t ordinary moments — these were red flags for a health emergency.
Vicki Gunvalson had a client who warned her that she might be having a stroke. A stroke can have many symptoms, and slurred speech is probably the most recognizable of them all.
The hospital reportedly “misdiagnosed” her with a sinus infection and sent her home. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of her horrific story.
At home, Vicki Gunvalson’s boyfriend Michael Smith later found her in the bathtub at home. (Thankfully, she has ended her relationship with Steve Lodge for good.) Michael talked about this on the podcast.
“The scariest part for me was when I walked in, for some reason Vicki decided to take a shower,” he said.
Michael recalled: “So she was in a bathtub full of water, and I went in, and she had almost passed out.”
What was the actual diagnosis?
14 hours later, Michael sought medical help for his girlfriend. This time, the doctors discovered the real cause of her death.
“He had a massive infection…actually it was sepsis, but it was pneumonia,” Michael explained on the podcast.
He added: “He explained it like this: when your body is fighting a big and dangerous infection, your whole body attacks it.”
“My right lung is pretty full of junk,” Vicki Gunvalson said, admitting she has very little energy left despite being discharged from the hospital.
Though Vicky Gunvalson has embraced unsubstantiated antivax conspiracy theories in the past, it’s good to see that she was willing to accept medical help when she needed it.
We hope she makes a full recovery soon. Vicki Gunvalson deserves to put this near-death experience behind her.